College Freshmen Call High School 'Too Easy'

Indicating agreement with the national movement to raise educational
standards, increasing numbers of college freshmen say that "grading in
the high schools has become too easy."

In the 18th annual survey of college-bound students, "The American
Freshman," researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles
Graduate School of Education found that 58.2 percent of the freshmen
entering college in the fall of 1983 agreed with that statement,
compared with 54.5 percent in the fall of 1982. (See Databank on page
22.)

The survey, conducted jointly by ucla and the American Council on
Education, is based on a statistically adjusted sample of 254,317
freshmen who entered two- and four-year colleges in the fall of
1983.

This year's freshmen are more liberal than their predecessors in
some respects and more conservative in others, the findings
suggest.

Underlying a variety of political stances, however, is a marked
trend toward materialism, the researchers found. The proportion of
students interested in being "very well off financially" rose to 69.3
percent in this year's survey--a new high level in the history of the
poll--while the proportion interested in "developing a meaningful
philosophy of life" dropped to 44.1 percent. In 1967, those figures
stood at 43.5 percent and 82.9 percent, respectively.

The class of 1987 is also the third in a row to register the
reversal of the "grade inflation" of the 1970's. The percentage of
students who had A averages in high school dropped slightly, while the
number reporting C averages increased slightly.

This year's survey also found a continuation in students' steadily
increasing support of busing for desegregation--from 46.9 percent last
year to 50.7 percent this year. "This steady increase in student
support for school busing may mean that the more personal experience
students have with busing, the more they support it," the researchers
note.

Answers to a new question on the survey suggest that many students'
experience of integration is confined to school; 20.4 percent attended
racially homogeneous schools, while 51 percent lived in neighborhoods
that were completely white or nonwhite.

Less Conservative

Politically, the students appear to be slightly less conservative
than their predecessors of the last few years. There was a modest
increase in the percentage of students who labeled themselves "liberal"
or "far left" in their views and a slight decrease in the number who
regarded themselves as "conservative" or "far right."

Fewer students supported increased spending for defense, and more
favored a national health-care plan and government protection of the
environment.

The proportion of students who said they believed that "the
activities of married women are best confined to home and family"
reached an all-time low of 24.5 percent.

But there was a decline of four percentage points in the number of
students who favored the legalization of marijuana--from 29.5 percent
last year to 25.7 percent this year. And fewer students--al6though
still a majority--favored increased government involvement in consumer
protection and energy conservation.

The survey's findings also reflected the growing impact of
computers. Although there was only a slight increase in the number of
students who planned to major in computer science, the number who had
written a computer program increased from 27.3 percent in 1982 to 37.5
percent this year.

This year's analysis also revealed an unprecedented pattern of
income distribution, with fewer students coming from middle-income
families. In previous years, the percentage of students from
high-income families showed increases and the percentage from
low-income families showed declines. This year, there were more
high-income families and more low-income families. Alexander Astin, the
director of the study, suggested that "it may be that recent economic
events have served to redistribute income from the less to the more
wealthy."

The survey, "The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 1983,"
is available from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program,
Graduate School of Education, University of California, Los Angeles,
Calif. 90024. The cost, which must be prepaid, is $8.25.

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